Spot, an 11-year-old springer spaniel, with a ton of character and a bit too much sense of adventure at times, found himself 5m down an old mineshaft in Carricktown.
But after 24 hours of searching with no success, his bark was heard and the rest was history.
Tarras woman Rebecca McElrea said she usually took Spot for a walk around the Carricktown area, out the back of Bannockburn, three times a week.
He usually stayed close by, but things went slightly awry as soon as they arrived on Thursday.
"But he didn’t, and then we just spent pretty much all day yesterday [Thursday] looking for him and couldn’t find him. We thought, ‘well, he’s gone’, and we asked all the neighbours, and the farmers, and they’re all very nice, but no-one had seen him."
She admitted it was a fairly sleepless night and her two children were sad but there was still some hope.
Mrs McElrea got up yesterday morning and was out looking for Spot before 6am.
"Well, it was dark when we go, and we were coming back down, and we heard him really far away — over the fence. We were like ‘maybe that’s him’.
"Then we started calling him, and then he started getting closer and closer, and we jumped over the fence, and, yeah, he was down a mineshaft."
No-one could get down the mineshaft so she stayed with Spot while a friend went to call the Cromwell Fire Brigade, Mrs McElrea said.
The fire brigade came along, set itself up and a member of the brigade was lowered down to gather Spot. Spot was happy to see her and she was very grateful for the efforts of the fire brigade.
"They’re amazing. They responded really quickly and just handled it with such professionalism.
"He’s part of our family, but I was also more worried for my kids because they were just devastated they hadn’t found him. I rang my husband and said we’d found him and they were pretty, pretty ecstatic."
She was looking forward to walking again with Spot, but the leash would be on well before Spot got a sniff of freedom, she said.
